An open process calls for our votes

An exercise in democracy is coming up next
Tuesday, June 3, and we hope all registered Republicans and
Democrats will participate.

There are no races for nominations to the
municipal governments of Chatham Borough or Chatham Township on the
ballot in the June 3 primary elections, but the entire New Jersey
State Legislature is up for election this year, and there are
contests in state legislative District 21, which includes Chatham
Township, and in District 26, which includes Chatham
Borough.

As if that isn't sufficient reason to get
out and vote on June 3, Republicans also have decisions to make
about the candidates they want to field in November for three seats
on the Morris County Board of Freeholders.

The District 21 primaries are flavored this
spring by some competition among candidates from Union County,
which dominates the district, and from Morris County who are
knocking ever more loudly on the door.

Five Republicans are seeking the GOP's nod
on June 3 to run in the fall for the two Assembly seats from
District 21. Assemblyman Dr. Eric Munoz of Summit, in Union County,
is seeking a second two-year term. His running-mate, Assemblyman
Jon Bramnick of Westfield, in Union County, was appointed to a
vacant Assembly seat in a GOP convention in February. He is a
former Plainfield city councilman. Hoping to return to the Assembly
is James J. Barry Jr. of Harding Township, in Morris County, who
was elected four times to the Assembly in the 1980s and served as
the state's Director of Consumer Affairs under then-Governor Thomas
H. Kean. Also running for the GOP nominations is the conservative
team of Betty LaRosa of Westfield and Helen Ryan of Mountainside,
both in Union County, who are painting the prevailing Republican
political establishment as too liberal.

On the Democratic side in District 21, three
candidates are vying for their party's nominations to the two state
Assembly seats: Norman W. Albert, the former mayor of Cranford
Township, in Union County; Melanie Selk, a councilwoman from
Roselle Park, in Union County, and Ellen Steinberg of Chatham
Township, in Morris County. An attorney active in the Women's
Political Caucus Democratic Task Force, Steinberg ran for the state
Senate in District 21 two years ago.

This year, there is no primary contest on
June 3 for the state Senate seat from District 21. Sen. Thomas H.
Kean Jr., a Republican from Westfield, in Union County, will
contend with Democrat Francis McIntyre in the fall.

In District 26, on the other hand, the
headline-making race is the bitter contest for the Republican
nomination to the district's state Senate seat between incumbent
Robert J. Martin of Morris Plains, and conservative challenger Jay
Webber of Chatham.

Three seats on the Morris County Board of
Freeholders are up for election in 2003, and in the June 3
primaries, all the action is on the Republican side, with a
four-race that features three incumbents and one challenger. The
incumbents are Freeholder Frank Druetzler, who is also the mayor of
Morris Plains; Freeholder Cecilia Laureys, who is also a Netcong
councilwoman, and Freeholder Director John Murphy, a former mayor
of Morris Township. Druetzler and Laureys are running as a
team.

The challenger in the GOP pack is Christina
Mangine Ramirez of Morristown, a commissioner for the Morris County
Improvement Authority and the executive director of the Morris
County Republican Committee.

There is no race in the Democratic primary
for freeholder, where the field numbers two candidates, Jo Ann
Byrnes and Robert Hofacker.

And there are no races for local government
in Chatham Borough or Chatham Township on the June 3 ballot, but
that doesn't prevent Republicans from giving their candidates a
vote of confidence. In the borough, Councilman Richard Plambeck of
Greenwood Avenue is unopposed for the GOP nomination for mayor, and
Council President Peter Birnbaum of Inwood Road and Councilman
Stephen Williams of Chatham Street are seeking new terms. They face
no Democratic challenge in the fall. In Chatham Township, just one
seat on the governing body is up for election this year, and Mayor
John DeMeo of Rolling Hill Drive is unopposed for the GOP's
nomination and for the November election.

The nominating primaries are a great feature
of our democracy, and they work best for the respective parties and
for the public when as many voters as possible participate. It's a
truly open process, and voters should cherish it and keep it
healthy. Whatever the party, whoever the candidate, please make a
point of voting on Tuesday, June 3.

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